Page 82 of Dallas

I turn around and give my dad a hard glare. “We just don’t have secrets now?” I ask.

My dad spreads his hands. “Can it really be called the secret when you get caught kissing on a doorbell camera you know is there?”

I snort. “I can’t say that I was really thinking about the doorbell camera at the time.”

Wyatt claps me on the back. “Fair enough, kid.”

“She seems really sweet,” says Uncle Grant, which is deeply Uncle Grant of him.

“She can be,” I say. “But you know, there’s a little bit of something wild to her.”

“Well, that’s not a bad thing.”

Grant smiles at that, and that’s something else I know he really gets. “I’m glad I got to bring her here today,” I say. “Because she just doesn’t have family.”

“And look at the family you have to give her,” says Wyatt.

“I don’t know if…”

“Come on,” Wyatt says. “You don’t know what? You don’t know that you’re in love with her? Because it’s pretty damned obvious from where I’m sitting.”

“Yeah,” my dad agrees.

“Excuse me,” I say. “What happened to letting people figure their own stuff out.”

“Have we ever claimed to do that?” Wyatt asks. “I thought it’s pretty well-documented that we are up in each other’s grills whenever possible.”

“That is, as I understand it, the blessing and curse of living in the general area of your family. And working with them,” Grant says.

“Well, all right. So yeah, that would be great if I could just give her everything. Everything. Everything she’s ever wanted, everything she’s ever… The family and all that stuff. But I don’t know what she wants.”

“Ask?” my dad suggests, sounding incredulous.

“Yeah, right. So I just say: what exactly do you want in the future?”

“Yes,” Wyatt says. “Which I get seems revolutionary to you in your twenties, but it seems a little bit more obvious when you’re in your forties.”

“Well, thanks for the tip, old man. But, I don’t want to scare her away. Like I said, she’s a little bit feral.”

“I’m not Wyatt,” Grant says. “Hell, I’m not even your dad. My experience with women isn’t vast. But, I do know a thing or two about building trust with someone who doesn’t trust anyone or anything. You just have to show her that you’re always going to be there. Your words are never going to mean as much as your actions.”

I think about that. I’ve given her a place to live. And we have a long history together, even if there were years inbetween where we didn’t see each other. She knows she can trust me physically. If the last few days have proven anything, it’s that sex works right between the two of us. But I do feel like there’s something missing. Romance. Something sweet and nice for once. We have our friendship, we sit together, and watch movies. But I want to give her… Everything. I want her to look at me and think that all the possibilities for what she wants in her life can be with me.

Oh Goddammit. Iamin love with her.

“Well, I need to do some kind of grand gesture, I think,” I say.

“Yes,” my uncles, my dad, and Luke and Dane all agree on that one.

“Such as?”

“You take her into the bathroom at the Gold Valley saloon,” says Luke. “You know, when you get lucky and there, you carve your name in the door.”

“Mydad’sname is in there,” I say.

I look over at my dad, who looks away from me.

“That isn’t romantic,” Grant points out.

---