Page 25 of Dallas

Chapter Seven

Sarah

I can’t believe this. That these wonderful people in this beautiful house are just accepting me. Like I belong. Saying I’m part of their family.

It makes me want to cry. In fact, I’m only barely holding it together. Between the pancakes this morning and now this. They’re just accepting me, and it makes no sense to me why. Nobody ever has.

Nobody except Dallas.

And now this man, who is definitely Dallas’s father, I can see it in his eyes, the way that he stands, the shape of his jaw, is telling me that I’m part of the family. It’s like a rare gift. Certainly, for someone like me, who has felt like I didn’t have anyone for all this time. And now I have… These people.

I swallow hard, my throat going tight. “I don’t want to put anyone at risk –”

“No one here is at risk,” Dallas’s dad says, crossing his arms. And I believe it. The same as I believed it when Dallas said he was armed. These are strong men. Men who will defend their own.

And for some reason, they’ve decided I’m their own.

“I just want to thank you,” I say, holding back an onslaught of unfamiliar emotion. Usually, I’m so contained. But everything has been dismantled over the last few months. And most especially the last few days.

Maybe it’s the fact that I feel safe that everything is coming close to the surface. I’m starting to discover I can’t hold back my feelings anymore.

“You don’t have to thank us,” says Kaylee. “I know how much you mean to Dallas.”

How much I mean to Dallas.

I suddenly feel unequal to that. We haven’t actually known each other for the last eight years. It doesn’t feel especially fair for him to be carrying around the weight of feelings he had for me when we were two lonely kids. He’s not a lonely adult.

I am.

I’ve sort of elbowed my way into his life, this rich, full life, with siblings and parents, friends, his whole wonderful career. I have aspirations. But that’s all they are.

Aspirations of a life that I should be able to have when I can devote more time to school. When I can stop running. When I can heal a little bit.

But he has those things. Maybe he doesn’t need me dragging him down. I don’t know why people being nice to me is sending me into a spiral. I guess that speaks to how unfamiliar it is to me.

“I’m going to take her down to town,” Dallas says. “Giveher a tour of the place. Her old boss offered to give her a job reference with Sammy Daniels.”

“Oh,” Kaylee says. “Sammy is great. She’s a friend.”

More connections. Connections between all these lovely people.

I’m an interloper. I get that.

“Oh, and thank you for the pancakes,” I add quickly.

“Of course,” Kaylee says. “Though, I thought… Never mind.”

“Yeah,” Dallas says. “I know what you thought.”

“You have to admit,” Kaylee says, “there’s no way we could’ve guessed that you finally found her.”

“She found me,” Dallas says, looking at me, and for a moment, it’s like everything fades away. Everything and everyone. Except for him. His blue eyes.

I look away, because suddenly it’s just too much to bear.

“Oh yeah,” Dallas says. “I won. Well, I didn’t win first place, but you know, I qualified for the finals, so I’m home for the next few months.”

Kaylee shrieks and grabs him, jumping up and down while she hugs him. “Dallas. You didn’t say, which made me not want to ask.”

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