He reached past her and opened the driver’s door. “I’ll text you later.”
She got in her SUV, backed out, and left the ranch, dust lifting into the air behind her tires. Dawson stood there in the gravel parking area, and watched.
He hadn’t even realized anyone else had come outside until Zona said, “April will do your small animal chores, Daws,” as she went by. “And Brandon said he’d make dinner tonight. That should give you back the time you lost during lunch today.”
She got in the truck as Duke and April went by, both of them wearing somewhat sheepish looks on their faces. So they at least recognized how they’d embarrassed him today. They left, and still Dawson stood there.
He had no idea where Daddy and Brandon went, but they didn’t come out front. No, it was his mommawho came and linked her arm through his. She stared down the road that led to Duke’s and off the ranch. “She’s a lovely woman, Dawson,” she said fondly. “I do hope it works out for you two.”
“Me too, Momma,” he whispered.
“You been praying over her?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “Her sister is having a hard time right now, and Caroline thinks us dating will cause a lot of problems and pain for Belle.”
“Ah, I see.” Momma leaned her head against Dawson’s arm, the way she so often did to Daddy. “So two more to add to my prayers. All right. I can do it.” She turned and headed back to the house while Dawson marveled over the strength of his mother’s faith.
And all at once, he realized he should’ve been praying for Belle too. Not just his own selfish needs and wants to have Caroline in his life. Not just for strength and clarity of mind for her to talk to Belle.
But for Belle herself to be healed enough for her to understand her sister. For her to support her sister. “For Belle,” he murmured.
And then, because he had lost a lot of time already today, he turned away from the road, away from his thoughts, away from his family, and headed for the safety and the perfect organization of his barn-office.
Once inside, he locked the door and leaned his back against it. “Lord,” he said, almost panting for how fast he’d walked here. “Calm my troubled soul.” He took adeep breath, trying to fight off the panic, trying to ward off the rising desperation.
If he could just go through his routine, he’d be fine. He opened his eyes and caught sight of his whiteboard. “First,” he said, stepping over to it and plucking off a blue note. “The owls got measured.”
He put that note on the corner of his desk. “I moved the sprinklers in field four.” The green note—an agricultural one—joined the blue one. Blue, for physical facilities tasks. “I ran five miles this morning.”
The yellow note—personal goals—got added to thecompletedpile. He meticulously went through what had been done, and he made new notes for Link coming to the ranch to see the owls on the fence line, for a phone call he needed to make in the morning, and for a meeting he’d found out about via email just before April had shown up.
Then, he stared at the pink pad of sticky notes, his fingers twitching toward it. He’d written on so many of these, but only once had he used the word “date.”
Now, he quickly peeled off a note and picked up his pen.Date with Caroline, he scrawled, and then he stood and added the pink note to Friday’s column on his board.
“Dear Lord,” he prayed. “Bless Belle that she can have ears to hear and a heart open to her sister’s words.”
And blast it all, Duke had been right. Ithadbeenreal nice to have a different voice utter a prayer in the Rhinehart family.
Now, if only God could make this prayer come true soon. “Tonight,” he whispered, totally begging for himself now. “Please, God, help them both to make it through this tonight.”
Chapter Sixteen
Caroline paced on the back deck, still wearing her putrid half-yellow, half-forest-green shirt and her work shorts. She’d gone straight to the cupboard to get the Biscoff when she’d gotten home and found Belle’s car gone.
“Where is she?” Displeasure streamed through Caroline. Why couldn’t anything be easy? Why couldn’t she have met Dawson a year ago, when Belle was whole and there were no owls between them?
“The owls are not an issue,” she told herself as she dug into the jar of Biscoff for another spoonful of comfort. “His daddy didn’t even blink when Dawson introduced you.” Nothing about their relationship was scandalous. People met through their jobs all the time.
She scoffed as the deliciously sweet cookie butter hither tongue.You don’t even have a relationship to label.Something couldn’t be scandalous if it didn’t exist.
She’d just licked the spoon clean when Judy yelled, “Aunt Caroline! We’re he-ere!”
Caroline spun from the back railing of the deck, caught with her stress treat in her hand. Before she could move, Judy came running outside with all her six-year-old enthusiasm. “Guess where we went?”
Caroline stabbed the spoon in the Biscoff jar and set it on the railing behind her as she asked, “Where?”
“To this really cool buffaloes museum.” She wore the look of someone who’d just been told that unicorns exist—and she’d seen one.