Page 88 of Never Stay Gone
“That’s fine.” Shane nuzzled into Dakota’s hold. “I miss the desert. I miss the way the land matches the color of your eyes. I miss being able to look in any direction and see a dozen different memories. Our lives are out there.”
“Yeah.” Dakota thought back to the way memories had cascaded through him as soon as he’d gone back to Big Bend. Everything good in his life had taken place in that desert, between those flat-topped mesas and under that big blue sky. His future was there too. His life with Shane. “They are.”
“Let’s go home,” Heath said. He held open his truck door for Shane and Dakota to slide in, then climbed behind the wheel. Dakota wrapped his arms around Shane and held him close, and Shane settled into him with a sigh.
They drove toward the setting sun, truck pointed for the western horizon, and home.
Epilogue
Heath tookthem to his cabin, in the Fort Cleary Mountains north of Rustler, and told them both to rest, to set their burdens down and let the world spin on without them for a while.
Good idea, Dakota thought. He sent in a leave of absence request and left the return date blank. Someone would come drag him back when they decided he’d had enough time off. He’d already been cleared in Wayne’s shooting, so there was no investigation looming over him. Justified, the Rangers had said. Damn right.
Until someone came for him, he was staying with Shane.
“Work doesn’t stop,” Heath said the next morning as he buckled on his gun belt and grabbed his Stetson. He’d slept on the couch and given Shane and Dakota his bedroom, with its small double bed. Dakota had slept on the floor, too worried about accidentally bumping into Shane and hurting him. He’d stayed awake most of the night, reaching up and tracing his fingers over Shane’s open palm, lying outstretched toward him on the side of the bed.
“I’ll be out on the border for a few days,” Heath told them. “It’s been a while. I need to check in.”
Before he left, Heath packed several coolers of bottled water. Dakota helped him carry them out to the truck, where he saw the back was already filled with two dozen loaves of bread, a box stuffed with canned goods, several jars of peanut butter, and crates of dry milk. Seeing his confusion, Heath explained, “There’s people out there that never leave their homesteads. Whenever I go on patrol, I bring food and water, and if I need to take care of business for anyone, I do. Sometimes I’ll cash a check and bring the money back. Sometimes I pick up medicine or drive a doctor out. If anyone needs tools or supplies or help with repairs, I’ll help with that too.”
“I… had no idea,” Dakota said. He couldn’t look Heath in the eyes. A week ago, he’d suspected the man of murdering Shelly, maybe of murdering more women.
“It’s not all radar guns and murder investigations. Being a sheriff out in these parts? It’s mostly about the people. Taking care of them. Helping them. Being there.”
“You’re a good one, Heath. You are.”
“One day, Shane will be a good sheriff too.” Heath winked and then swung up into his truck. “But not too soon. I’m not that much older than you two. Not ready to call it quits yet.” Dakota laughed and waved as Heath drove off, and he saw Heath’s smile in his rearview mirror until he disappeared behind a cloud of dust.
Shane was still sleeping a lot, and Dakota waited until he was down for the afternoon before he wrote a note—Be back soon, I love you—and then drove to Rustler. He went to the bank first, getting a blank counter check and a pen, then walked down the street to the real estate office. He spent an hour poring over the listings across the county.
When he saw it, he knew immediately.
“This one,” he said. “I can buy it today.”
The realtor, an older woman who had retired from teaching up in Pecos but ended up not liking sitting on her behind all day, arched her eyebrows at him. “That’s a real run-down place, mister. Real run-down.”
It was the right spot, though. “Then you won’t mind knocking ten grand off the price?”
“Five grand. It ain’t that much to start with. You can take the keys today. Not that that place has any locks,” she’d said with a snort.
He wrote the check and took the keys, then made the bone-jarring drive up the unpaved track—he’d have to get someone out to grade that, quick—to the house and land he’d bought. He stood on the windswept, weather-beaten ground and turned his face up to the sun.
Before he went back to Heath’s, he ran through five different stores to get what he needed: beach loungers and an umbrella, a big plastic cooler, packs of water, plywood, nails, screws, a push broom. Sleeping bags and an air mattress and a bunch of tarps. He’d seen tools at Heath’s place, so he didn’t buy too much. He’d borrow the rest.
The next morning, Dakota bounced around like he’d snorted his coffee instead of drinking it. He’d been up at dawn, making breakfast that he brought to Shane in bed. Shane usually went back to sleep after eating, but Dakota got him up, got him dressed, and helped him out to the truck, then tucked him in with as many pillows as would fit before they set off.
“Where are we going?” Shane asked. “And what is all that in the bed?”
“You’ll see.”
He figured Shane thought they were going out to their spot, to the place they’d spent so much time together as teenagers, exploring each other and their brand-new love. But then Dakota turned, crawling along the bumpy drive so slow he could have gotten out and pushed the truck faster, and pulled up to the ramshackle cabin he’d brought the day before.
It was a dog-run home, two large rooms connected by a breezeway and surrounded on all sides by a giant wraparound porch. They were settler homes, popular in the 1800s, before air-conditioning was even an idea. Wind ran through the breezeway and swirled around the porch, keeping the home livable.
The porch was sagging and the roof had caved in on one side, and most of the wood was warped and weatherworn and needed to be replaced. But the land was covered in ocotillo and mature mesquite, prickly pear, Texas sage, and giant agave. There was shade, and there were little red ocotillo blooms and prickly pear flowers, and from the porch, Dakota could see the trails and the mesa they’d climbed the day Shane had kissed him for the very first time.
“You bought this?” Shane asked, leaning into him. “On purpose?”
