Page 46 of The Cowboy Who Looked Again

In Willowbrook, Virginia, at Whispering Paws.

Chapter Fifteen

Dawson Rhinehart pushed the shirt off his eyes as his alarm sounded. Yes, even at five o’clock in the morning, he needed something to block the sunlight from waking him even earlier than that.

His eyes felt like someone had spent the night rubbing sand in them. He sat up and pulled his arms up over his head, his ribs on the right side pulling in a not-quite-comfortable way. He’d been battling cattle all summer, and they only had one more round of antibiotics to get through the last group of cattle to eradicate the BRD on the ranch.

Respiratory diseases weren’t trivial, not on a cattle ranch in Texas. Especially when it bordered the largest cattle operation in the Panhandle. His oldest brother, Duke, ran the ranch, and he’d been down to the hospital twice this year alone from accidents on their family land.

He worked the ranch with his wife, Arizona, and Dawson loved going to their house for dinner. They had four children who adored Dawson, and he’d see all of them out on the ranch somewhere today. Their parents made them all work in the summer, and Dawson remembered really looking forward to school starting again, because then he didn’t have to work in the hot sunshine for twelve hours every day. Seven days a week. All holidays.

At the same time, Dawson loved nothing more than working the family ranch. In his mind, he just called it the Rhinehart Ranch, as did plenty of others. But on the books, they did business as Hidden Hills Ranch. They weren’t as fancy as Shiloh Ridge next door, with big arches and fancy houses.

Dawson currently lived with his younger brother Brandon, and he wasn’t surprised to hear the shower in the cabin start while he still tried to stretch out the discomfort in his right side. He gained his feet and walked out of his room, stretching out his arms and legs. He wouldn’t shower until he finished his run anyway, and by then, Brandon would be finished, with breakfast on the table.

They had a good routine going, and while that sometimes drove Dawson nuts, he also liked the predictability of his life.

Back in his bedroom, he dressed in his running shorts and shoes, then pulled a tank top over his head. He’d probably lose it at some point, because the sun baked Texas in July, no matter the time of day.

Dawson liked to check his calendar for the day before his run, because then his thoughts would set his intention and mindset for the day, something he’d learned to do in high school to avoid panicking when something came up he hadn’t anticipated.

He’d been through quite a bit of cognitive behavior therapy in an attempt to get his thoughts to bring up the good things about him instead of the bad, and a morning run with his schedule in his head had helped immensely.

“Oh, my triple date is tonight,” he muttered when he saw the event on the calendar. He was going out with Finn and Edith Ackerman and Alex and Nicki Baxter. Yes, they were both married couples, but Dawson was the same age as Finn and Edith, and he got along well with them.

Alex was Edith’s younger brother, and he’d only been married for about a month now. Dawson didn’t have a serious or steady girlfriend, but he’d asked Galatia Haws to go to dinner with him and his friends. He’d met her through Brandon, who’d met her when he’d gone to pick up his girlfriend at her office in one of the downtown high rises.

He’d taken her out a couple of times now, but he hadn’t kissed her. He was still deciding if he even wanted to kiss her. If he did, that would take their relationship to another level, and Dawson wasn’t sure if he wanted to go to the I-have-to-talk-to-her-in-person-to-break-up stage.

Right now, he could text her—or just not text her about another date—and that would end things.

Besides the date, he’d be meeting with Duke and also Cactus Glover to administer the last round of antibiotics, and then he had soil samples to collect from their far western fields, and then he’d get to escape to the office to handle some administrative tasks here on the ranch. All in all, he’d probably eat lunch at Zona’s house, laugh with his nieces and nephews, and stop by the homestead to visit his parents before his date tonight.

All nice, normal things Dawson did on a regular basis.

He ran; he ate breakfast with Brandon; he showered. Seven o’clock still hadn’t struck, but he left the cabin with his brother to get their nastiest chores done before the heat really burned them.

He fed horses, swept stalls, and then finally saddled his equine so he could ride out to where the last group of cattle waited for their final dose of antibiotics. His long sleeves and cowboy hat kept the sun off his skin, thus avoiding a burn, and he wasn’t surprised to find Duke and Cactus at the temporary fencing that had created a paddock for the remaining cattle.

“Morning,” he said to his brother, who was really his half-brother. They only shared their daddy’s genes, but Duke gave him a nod and said, “Morning, Daws.”

Cactus said nothing, because if there was someone grumpier than Duke, it was Cactus Glover. He handed out the supplies and they all went over the fences and into the thick of the cattle. No wonder Dawson’s ribs and shoulders hurt him almost all the time.

As he went about his job, his mind wandered down a road it shouldn’t. A path he didn’t even explore during his morning runs.

Continuing his education and doing something a little less physically taxing. Something where he wasn’t body-slammed by thousand-pound cows into fences or the ground. Something where he didn’t have to lift hay bales or haul feed bags or shovel mud out of stalls in the winter.

Something a little more white collar and a little less cowboy.

The problem was, Dawson had already been to college. He’d earned a degree in ranch management, in fact. When he wasn’t helping with the chores and things like making sure their herd stayed healthy, he managed most of the back-end affairs on the ranch.

Forms, paperwork, and accounting took up most of his afternoons, but at least he got to work indoors. Still, in his most uncomfortable moments, Dawson wondered if he was old enough to be feeling so…rusty.

About halfway through the antibiotic dosing, Duke’s phone rang. He stepped out of the fence to answer it, and he paced away from the contained herd while Cactus and Dawson continued to work. Duke never stood still to talk on the phone. Heck, Duke never stood still. He ran on high energy all the time, and just thinking about him exhausted Dawson.

“Dawson,” Duke barked.

He straightened and found his older brother perched on the top rung of the temporary fence. “Yeah?”

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