“Dawson.”
“See you soon, Caroline.” He ended the call, and that ignited the fire in her chest.
“He hung up.” She looked at the screen, where his name faded to black. “I said his name, clearly with something more to say, and he hung up anyway.”
Caroline looked up, emotions circling through her, throwing oddly colored images into her vision, the way akaleidoscope did. Everything felt too hot up here on the roof, but she simultaneously felt cold. Clammy.
She’d just been thrown back into her marriage, and Caroline would not put up with being treated like that again. She absolutely would not be spoken over, or belittled, or made to feel like her words and opinion did not matter.
And Joe had made her constantly question her worth. He’d said things to her that made her doubt everything, doubt herself, doubt reality, even. He’d hung up on her before, and Caroline’s fingers tightened around the plastic case on her phone.
Before she knew it, Dawson pulled into her driveway, and he waved to her from the ground. “Around back?”
She didn’t answer, and the handsome cowboy moved with confidence into her backyard. Her throat felt like she’d severed her vocal cords and then tried to iron them back into place. She could barely get air down into her lungs, and she startled and pressed her eyes closed as a metallic clattering noise rent the air.
Dawson climbed onto the roof a few seconds later, and he had a bright-as-the-noonday-sun smile on his face that felt like he’d put it there just for her. “Hey.” He reached out his hand for her, but Caroline didn’t reciprocate the gesture.
His expression changed, but he came the several feet to her and sat beside her with a groan. “It’s hot up here.”
“Mm.” Caroline had so much to say, and it all tasted like poison inside her.
“Pretty view up here though,” he said. “I like the perspective on the neighborhood.”
Tall trees surrounded them, and in the spring and summer, they’d leaf up and make things green in Three Rivers. Right now, she could see further than she’d be able to when the trees had leaves, and it did offer a different perspective.
It showed her how her house existed among many neat rows of other houses, when it was so easy to feel isolated.
“You better tell me what I did wrong,” he said quietly.
Caroline sat up straight and drew her shoulders back. “When I filed for divorce from my ex-husband, I vowed I would never allow myself to get in a situation like that again.”
Dawson looked at her, and the weight of his gaze on the side of her face landed like a load of bricks. “You’ve been married?”
“Yes,” she said with a single nod. “For a few years. I’ve been divorced for five.”
“How old are you?” He cleared his throat. “Wait, let me back up a little. Soften my tone.” His hand slid across her knee and took hers into the safety of his. “I’m real sorry about your first marriage. Sorry that it obviously hurt you and brought you pain. Not sorry it led you here,to me, but sorry I did something to make you feel like you did then.”
Caroline swallowed, because Joe would’ve never apologized. He always thought he was right, and he’d argue it and argue it, sometimes without even any facts. She squeezed his hand and summoned up the courage to look at him.
Dawson wore resignation and defeat on his face, and he ducked his head the moment she looked his way. His cowboy hat concealed his face, and Caroline sure did like his humility.
“You hung up on me,” she whispered. “Without letting me say what I wanted to say.” She drew in a breath and raised her voice. “My ex-husband did that constantly. Even when I found a way to say something, he’d twist it around until I was the one asking him to forgive me and questioning why I was so weak, so stupid, and so obviously not worthy of him.”
Dawson kept her hand tightly in his, but he didn’t look at her. “I’m real sorry about that,” he said. “I didn’t realize. I thought you were teasing me about making a joke is all.”
Caroline gazed over the neighborhood again, an extreme calm moving through her. “Joe would’ve never apologized.”
“I won’t hang up on you again. It wasn’t my intent to silence you or anything. I guess I just didn’t feel like being teased about making a joke.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder, glad when it felt good. Right. Easy. “I’m sorry too,” she said. “This is a non-negotiable point for me, and it makes me a little hard-headed. A little harsh sometimes.”
“I like a little harsh sometimes,” he said, and Caroline could’ve melted into him. “I’ma little harsh sometimes.”
She nudged him with her shoulder. “Just sometimes?”
“Hey, I came running when you texted, and I’ll have you know that my house was full of my friends.”
Shock zinged through her, first that he’d left his friends, and second, that he’d had friends over to his cabin for lunch. “It was? Why?”