Page 16 of Dallas

“I am?”

I realize I haven’t explained anything to her.

“Yeah. I have a place on my dad’s property.”

She blinks. “Your dad has property?”

“I told you. He’s a veterinarian. He’s… He’s pretty well-off, actually.” I don’t know why I feel a vague, creeping sense of shame about that. About having money. About having things. Except, I knew so many kids in the same situation as Sarah and I, and they didn’t get this kind of hand up in life that I got. And what have I done for anybody? This is the first thing. The first opportunity that I’ve had to do something meaningful with the gift that I received being taken in by Bennett Dodge.

“I am so thankful for you,” she says. I feel like that’s not even a thing for her to say. She shouldn’t have to be grateful to be taken care of.

But life’s not fair.Life’s not fair. I’ve been given this gift, this gift of a family, and she hasn’t been given anything. That really isn’t fair.

Sometimes I think I have survivor’s guilt.

That I get mad about that, because why should the survivor get the luxury of guilt?

I shove all that to the side, and I go into the bedroom and take her suitcase for her. I don’t even let her start to protest, and we lock the apartment back up and head to my truck.

“After tonight’s event, we’re driving to Gold Valley. It’s a little bit of a haul. But we just need to get out of here.”

She nods. “I just want to go home with you.”

Chapter Five

Sarah

I don’t know what to expect today at the Expo. I’m being given a behind-the-scenes look at the rodeo, and I can’t say that I ever really fantasized about having one. But here we are.

My heart feels bruised from everything that happened this morning. From having to quit my job, showing Dallas my apartment, and facing the reality that I’m leaving it. We parked my car there, so that it would look like I’m home. Part of Dallas’s plan to keep Chris from realizing what’s happening.

I hate that he’s forcing me out. I hate that the little life I built for myself is being absolutely demolished by the hovering specter of Christopher Murphy. I know that he’s small.

I know he doesn’t matter.

I know that he’s the worst sort of person.

Someone who doesn’t deserve loyalty, who doesn’t deserve to be at the forefront of anyone’s thoughts.

I know that, and yet he has the power to make me afraid.

I don’t focus on that, though. Instead, I focus on my surroundings. It’s an organized chaos, animals and rodeo officials everywhere. Everything is a lot more regimented than I could’ve ever imagined. The riders are randomly assigned the animals that they have for the events, so there’s a coordination effort that happens in back offices, I certainly never imagined. There are judges, the bull fighters, who I usually think of as rodeo clowns. There are men on hand to help open the gates, to get all the animals where they need to be.

Dallas gives me an overview of everything, and for a little while, I’m taken out of my life. Out of all of my issues. It’s amazing, if I’m honest.

There’s a refreshment tent in the back, serving meals, barbecue mainly, and beer on tap. Again, I remind Dallas that I can’t drink yet. He laughs and gets us a couple of waters and two plates of barbecue goodness- brisket, potato salad, and baked beans. “I don’t drink before events,” he says, holding up the water.

“Hey! Dodge.”

We both turn at the sound of someone calling out to Dallas. There’s a tall, handsome man with dark hair heading our direction, a blonde woman at his side.

“Sarah,” Dallas says. “This is Colt. He’s another one of the bull riders. And this is Stella, she’s a barrel racer.”

Stella is beautiful. Athletic and compact, with bright blue eyes and freckles scattered across her nose. The strange flood of possessiveness that I feel, standing next to Dallas, is not entirely unfamiliar to me. It reminds me of being a kid,whenever a new foster sibling would come into the family, or when Dallas and I would get moved to a new house, and I felt the need to make sure that all the other kids knew that even if he was nice to them, they weren’t special to him. Not like I was.

It's such a weird, childish feeling, and yet mixed with something that doesn’t feel childish at all, that I don’t want to look at too closely.

“This is Sarah,” he says. “I… I knew her back when we were kids.”

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