Page 33 of Whiskey and Wildfire

Dakota was quiet for a moment, his fingers tracing idle patterns on my chest. “Yeah,” he finally said. “More than okay, actually. That was... incredible.”

I smiled, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “When you said you lost everything last time you opened up to someone,” I asked suddenly, twirling my fingers through a lock of his hair. “What did you mean?”

Dakota tensed against me, glancing over his shoulder. “I…”

“You don’t have to talk about it right now,” I said quickly, feeling his hesitation. “I just… I want to know about you, about your life and where you come from. But… maybe today has been unexpected enough.”

He nodded, settling back down against me. We were quiet for a long moment. I could feel the awkwardness returning, filling the air around us. I’d hoped the blowjobs would help with that, but it seemed I’d gone and ruined it with my stupid question.

“Logan?” Dakota asked, breaking the tension at last.

“Yeah?”

Dakota took a deep breath, his fingers still tracing patterns on my chest. “I... I want to tell you. About my past, I mean. It’s just hard for me to open up.”

I nodded, running my hand soothingly along his back. “Take your time. I’m here to listen whenever you’re ready. It doesn’t have to be today.”

“Thanks.”

“But do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Go on another date with me? Even though we’re both messes and everything is weird?”

He turned over his shoulder once more, a sly smile pulling at his lips. “I’d love that.”

Warmth flooded my chest as I leaned in, kissing him once more. “Thank you.”

Tangled together with Dakota in his bed was some of the best sleep I ever had. But it didn’t last long. Not when someone began pounding on the door well before dawn.

“Logan!” a voice cried. “LOGAN!”

For a moment I thought I was dreaming, but when I opened my eyes and saw flashing red lights outside Dakota’s window, my heart nearly stopped. Something was terribly wrong.

“Logan!”

Leaping out of bed, I darted into the living room, pulling my jeans on as fast as I could. I didn’t bother to hide the fact that I’d been caught in Dakota’s cabin without any clothes on. That didn’t matter. Racing to the door, I tore it open to find Carolinestanding there, tears streaming down her face. Behind her an ambulance was pulling out of the driveway, siren beginning to wail as it headed south to Amarillo.

“Caroline?! What’s wrong? What happened?!”

She just sobbed, falling into my arms. “It… It’s Daddy,” she said, her voice shaking so bad I could barely understand her. “He had a heart attack.”

Chapter 13

Logan

The hospital in Amarillo was like any other, cold, sterile, and full of bustling nurses that looked like they hadn’t slept in two years. They rushed in and out of the heavy metal doors all night that separated us from the operating rooms. That’s where my father was, where he had been for the past several hours.

I’d been sitting there all night with Caroline and my mother, silently startling every time the doors opened and a white coat stepped through. We waited and waited, hoping that a doctor wouldn’t come through and tell us my father was dead. Each minute that ticked by was a blessing and pure torture.

Caroline shifted in her seat, her boots scuffing against the linoleum floor. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet all night, her usual brash demeanor subdued by the gravity of the situation. I caught her glancing at me every so often, her brown eyes filled with a mix of concern and something else I couldn’t quite place. It might’ve been fear.

“You want some coffee?” she finally asked, her voice low and rough from a long night with no sleep.

I shook my head, my stomach too knotted with worry to consider putting anything in it. My mother, on the other hand, nodded gratefully. Caroline stood up, her long dark braidswinging behind her as she made her way to the vending machine.

The clock on the wall ticked away, each second feeling like an eternity. I thought about my father, lying there on the operating table, fighting for his life. The image of him being unloaded out of the ambulance and into the emergency room still haunted me. He was pale, unconscious, and looked like he wasn’t breathing at all. It scared the shit out of me.

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