A loud, rodeo cowboy type of whoop. He tossed his cowboy hat into the air and laughed. “Yes,” he said through his chuckles. “Yes, I want this apprenticeship. Thank you so much, Angel.”
And before she could even comprehend what was happening, Henry took the two strides to her and lifted her right up off her feet. “Oh,” she squeaked as helaughed over her.
“This is so great. My momma is gonna be so happy.” He beamed down at her, and then, before she even knew her feet had touched the ground again, Henry Marshall kissed her.
And oh, Angel couldn’t help herself—she kissed him right on back.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dawson took Caroline’s pint of ice cream from her and set it on the conveyor belt at Wilde & Organic. He moved down to pay, his phone vibrating in his back pocket. When it rang out loud, he knew whoever was calling had done so three times within five minutes.
He took out his phone and wallet and handed the money to Caroline. “I have to get this,” he said. He’d explained to her that he put his phone on sleep mode during their dates, but that if someone needed to get ahold of him for emergencies, it would ring.
Her eyes broadcasted concern, but she turned to the clerk as he looked at his screen. His eyebrows puckered, and he almost let the call go.
Because it was his niece, Shiloh. Something told him to answer, and Dawson’s thick thumb barely got the callopen before it went to voicemail. “Hey, Shiloh,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“I need you to come over to Ollie’s,” she said. She panted through the line, indicating running or fear. Something.
“Ollie’s?” he asked. “Oliver Walker’s place?’
“Yes,” she said, a baby starting to wail in the background. Ollie and Aurora had three children, and their first had been born really, really small. Like, teeny tiny small, as she’d stopped growing in the womb. Rory had lived in the hospital for months while the baby continued to develop, and Jewel was still a tiny little girl, though she had to be six or seven years old now.
“JJ’s here babysitting, and it’s…a mess. Lara fell outside and she’s bleeding all over. JJ’s panicking, but he won’t call his parents or Ollie, and I can see you’re at Wilde and Organic.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Dawson said, turning back to the check stand. Caroline held his wallet in one hand, took a step and picked up the now-bagged ice cream with the other, and faced him. “Do you need to call an ambulance?”
“No,” Shiloh said. “We just need someone who can think.”
Dawson took the ice cream and headed for the exit. “Do you need me to stay on the line?”
“No,” Shiloh said. “I’m going to try to get the other kids out of the way. Lara isn’t letting either of usanywhere near her, so we can’t really tell what’s wrong.”
“She’s a stubborn little thing,” Dawson said. He, Rory, and Oliver were all the same age. They’d been married for twelve or thirteen years now, and they had three kids. That was what happened when two people got married at nineteen and started building their life together.
Dawson really liked Ollie, but he wasn’t a farmer or a rancher. He’d been friends with Finn too, but since Finn had gone into the Army and Ollie had moved back East for school, they didn’t stay in touch.
He’d been back in town for a while now, but he worked in one of the downtown buildings, lived closer to town, and Dawson didn’t often think of him when getting together with the other cowboys—like Finn, Alex, Brandon, Link, and Mitch.
It was simply life; it didn’t mean he didn’t like and wouldn’t help Ollie. In fact, he hung up and said, “My niece needs us at a friend’s house to help with a small bleeding issue.”
“My goodness,” Caroline said as she picked up the pace. “All right, then. The end of this date just got exciting.”
He chuckled, though he didn’t like the idea that the beginning and middle of the date had been boring. He’d been trying to figure out how to tell her about his OCD and anxiety, and every time he tried, he couldn’t do it.
He’d written it on a pink sticky note, so he could easily check it off any time, but he kept moving the note from one day to the next without actually doing it.
Ollie and Aurora only lived a few blocks from Wilde & Organic, and Dawson jogged up the front sidewalk to the porch while Caroline and the ice cream brought up the rear.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he said as he entered. Chaos existed around him, and Dawson paused in the doorway. A little boy of probably two sat on the loveseat in a diaper, a partially eaten and totally soggy graham cracker in his hand. He looked at Dawson with wide moon eyes while another child cried from further within.
Jewel sat at the dining room table, singing to herself and coloring, like the happenings in the house this evening were completely normal.
To Dawson, they weren’t. It wasn’t like the house was dirty or falling down, but shoes lay by the front door in a heap, unpacked plastic grocery sacks sat on the kitchen counter, and both JJ and Shiloh stared at him from the other side of the long couch.
“Praise the heavens,” Shiloh said. “Lara’s in the kitchen, and she still won’t let us help her.”
“What happened?” Dawson asked as he moved forward.