A couple of minutes passed, and Dawson detected the scent of something cooking inside. He groaned as he got to his feet, and pure humiliation filled him. “I’m going to go shower,” he said in a near whisper. “I’m sure Ruffin would love it if you’d come sit on the couch with him.”
She sniffed and got to her feet, nodded, and went ahead of him down the steps. Dawson didn’t know whatto do next, but he did need to shower, and he really only needed five more minutes in his barn-office.
So he let Caroline get in her car and pull out of Duke’s driveway ahead of him. She turned to go down the road toward the rest of ranch, and he assumed she’d go to his house as he’d suggested. He returned to his office and finished the order that needed placing, and then he approached his cabin.
Brandon’s truck wasn’t there, and Dawson’s brain was so buzzy that he couldn’t quite remember where his brother had gone tonight. Inside, he found Dumpling and Ruffin both on the couch with Caroline, and his girlfriend studying something on her phone.
She didn’t look like she’d been crying, but she barely looked up when he entered. “Hey,” she said, and oh, that tone reminded him of their first meal together at the diner. The one where he’d attached himself to her just to get a table, and they’d barely spoken three sentences to each other.
Dawson sighed, regretting the words he’d spoken in the past half-hour. He walked over to the couch and collapsed onto it, and then twisted so he could lay his head in her lap. “I love seeing you when I come in from the ranch,” he whispered. “I love that my pets love you, and Iadorethat you’re willing to come up here and have dinner with my nosy brother and sister-in-law and all their kids.”
Caroline breathed out, and it seemed like all thetension in her body went with it. She set his cowboy hat aside and ran her fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes and simply basked in the zinging, tingling touch of her.
“I love coming up to this ranch,” she whispered back. “I love your dog and even this cat that won’t touch grass, and Iadorethat you weren’t afraid to speak your mind with me.”
“I’m afraid I broke us,” he said.
“No,” she said. “I needed to hear it.”
“I’m sorry.”
She covered his mouth, and he opened his eyes and looked up at her. “Don’t you dare apologize to me,” she hissed. “You did nothing wrong. I’m the one who, well, everything you said was right. I’m the one who hasn’t made room for us.”
“You have six more months,” he said, a smile lifting his heart and his lips.
Caroline blinked at him. “Six more months?”
“Our first date was absolutely on New Year’s Day,” he said.
Her mouth flickered into a smile that only lasted for a heartbeat. “Then I havesevenmore months to figure things out.”
Dawson laughed and sat up, the blood rushing to his head in a way that made it swim. He sobered though Caroline giggled and smiled with him. She did the same, and the moment between them felt powerful andmeaningful, and Dawson simply opened his mouth and said, “I’m going to be in love with you way before those seven months are up, my sweet Caroline.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and she closed them and shook her head. “No darling?”
Dawson slid closer to her and touched his mouth to hers. He didn’t correct his pet name for her, because his kiss hopefully said it all. She was his sweet Caroline and his darling, and Dawson may or may not already be in love with her.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Misty Granger came out of her bedroom and moved down the hall, the fabric of the skirt swishing around her legs. “What about this one?”
Janey, her best friend, and Ralf, her other best friend, looked away from the cheese and crackers Ralf had brought.
“I think it’s too blue,” Misty said. “I don’t look good in blue.”
“It’s fantastic,” Ralf said at the same time Janey said, “The purple one is better.”
Misty looked down at the dark blue fabric, which had shimmering flowers woven through it in a lighter blue. She’d tried on several dresses so far, everything from beige to tangerine to blue to purple.
“Go put the purple one back on,” Janey said. “And let’s go. You’re going to be late to your own wedding dinner.”
“It’s a rehearsal dinner,” Misty said over her shoulder as she turned to go change yet again.
“It is not!” Janey called after her. “To rehearse something suggests you’ll be doing it again as a real thing!”
Misty giggled as she ducked back into her bedroom and started the process of getting undressed and redressed all over again. It was true that she and Lincoln Glover were getting married tomorrow.
It was also true that they were having a “rehearsal dinner” tonight that wouldn’t be replicated the following day. Misty had said she didn’t mind having a big shin-dig with all of his aunts and uncles, of which there were dozens.